UK Resilience

Annex

The response of the Emergency Services

If your organisation is involved with a major incident which is attended by the emergency services you should be aware of the procedures which they will follow. Although there are minor differences across the country the organisational framework for the response is similar.

The response is at three levels - operational, tactical and strategic. Whether or not all three levels are needed will depend the scale of the incident, and the best way to understand what might happen is to look at an example:

Assume that a chemical tanker has had a brake failure and has run into a department store on a busy Saturday morning. People are injured and a small fire has broken out. A policeman will probably be the first person on the scene. His job is to assess what damage there is and to report back to his headquarters. Shortly afterwards fire appliances and ambulances arrive. The fire-fighters attack the fire and the ambulance personnel look after the injured. The police at the scene will require assistance from a member of the store staff who is familiar with the layout of the premises and the contents. All this is happening at the OPERATIONAL (sometimes called Bronze) level.

However, it is apparent soon that help is needed to as the fire starts to spread throughout the building. More fire appliances arrive and the senior fire officer at the scene becomes concerned about the effect of the increasing heat on the chemical carrier. He seeks expert advice from the chemical company and he asks the police to provide a cordon around the area to keep onlookers away and to enable the emergency services to work without people getting under their feet.

The store implements its emergency plan, which includes such things as evacuation, salvage of specific items and so on. As the police, fire and ambulance service have to work closely together they set up a TACTICAL (sometimes called Silver) level headquarters in mobile command centres just outside the police cordon. The management of the incident is undertaken from here, co-ordinated by the police. Only authorised people are allowed through the cordon onto the scene of the incident. The police may require attendance at this tactical centre by someone from the store, probably the manager.

The fire increases in intensity and the senior fire officer becomes very concerned for the safety of the public, since there is now a very great danger of the tanker exploding because of the intense heat. If the tanker explodes a poisoned cloud could spread out over local shops and a neighbouring housing estate. He considers that local people should be warned and that they may need to evacuate the immediate area. So a STRATEGIC (sometimes called Gold) level headquarters is set up well away from the incident, usually at police headquarters.

The police call a meeting of a Senior Co-ordination Group, made up from senior people from the fire and ambulance services, local authority, health authority and so on. It is this group which will decide on the need to evacuate, with the consequent setting up of reception centres in pre-designated buildings such as schools or sports halls. The media will be contacted and warnings broadcast on local radio. It is possible that the police may also require a senior representative from the store or its head office to attend meetings, particularly if the store is a very large employer or if there are manufacturing processes or chemicals on site which might constitute a danger to the public.

In the event of a large number of fatalities the police may set up a casualty bureau. This has two functions. The first is to answer calls from members of the public through a telephone number which has been broadcast on local or national media. The second is to take information from hospitals and other facilities, such as the managers of the site where the incident occurred, about the people who have been killed and injured so that positive identification of casualties can be confirmed. It is then a police responsibility to inform relatives.

It is clearly important that your arrangements tie in with those of the emergency services, so you should discuss your plans with your local authority Emergency Planning Officer. For example you will need to have planned how designated members of your staff will identify themselves if, having evacuated the site, they wish to return through the police cordon, or you will need to tell the emergency services of any special arrangements if they have to gain access to your premises.

Exercising your response

The only way to ensure that your plans can effectively be implemented is to test them in regular exercises to assess the validity of the arrangements and then to update the plans in the light of experience. The clear benefits of exercising are:

• Significant increase in the likelihood of the business surviving a disaster, whatever its cause.
• Preservation and enhancement of public image.
• Ensuring continuity of business operation or service provision.
• Minimising the impact of disaster on the community and environment.
• Minimising the social, political, legal and financial consequences of disaster.
• Identifying areas of an organisation's vulnerability.
• Training those who may be involved with responding to an emergency.

Exercises are an important management tool for informing and motivating personnel and giving confidence to those who may be required to respond in a crisis. They provide the only comprehensive way of realistically evaluating contingency plans. They bring together those who may be involved with responding to an incident and they allow scrutiny of their responses under controlled conditions. Thus exercises should reflect reality as far as is practicable. They can establish and reinforce relationships between those taking part, often under stressful conditions. They bring people from different areas together to work as a team, to realise clear goals and to get to know and respect each other's strengths and weaknesses.

The support and commitment of senior management is crucial to the success of the exercise programme. Exercises must not be seen in isolation but rather as part of a programme of learning and validating plans. Exercises should meet their aims and objectives in the most appropriate manner. Exercises need not necessarily be major undertakings in size, duration or involvement, but good exercises, whatever their format, can take a considerable amount of preparation and follow up assessment.

There are basically three types of exercise, although there are variations on the theme of each of them. The choice of the appropriate exercise is important; it should provide the most cost effective way of achieving its aim and objectives. The three main types are seminar, table top and live exercises.

Seminar exercises. Seminar exercises are generally low cost activities and are designed to inform participants about the organisation and the procedures which would be used to respond to an incident. Those involved can be either new to the job or established personnel. This type of event will bring staff together in order to inform them of current developments and thinking. These events may take the form of lectures or panel discussions and are primarily designed to focus on one particular aspect of the response. The emphasis of this type of exercise is on problem identification and solution finding rather than decision making.

Table-top exercises. Table-top exercises are a very cost effective and efficient method of testing plans, procedures and people. They provide the few players involved with an excellent opportunity to interact with and understand the roles and responsibilities of the other agencies taking part. They can engage players imaginatively and generate high levels of realism. Participants will get to know the people with whom they may be working in responding to an emergency. Those who have worked together and know each other will provide a much more effective response than those who come together for the first time when a disaster occurs.

Live exercises. Live exercises range from a small scale test of one component of the response, like evacuation, through to a full scale test of the whole organisation to an incident. Live exercises provide the best means of confirming the satisfactory operation of emergency communications, and the use of 'casualties' can add to the realism. Live exercises provide the only means for fully testing the crucial arrangements for handling the media

Whatever type of exercise is chosen it is important to record and evaluate the event. Provision of a succinct report of successes and failures to which management can refer is a vital part of the overall learning process. In the event of a disaster previous exercise reports demonstrate to the community, and any subsequent formal enquiry the commitment of the organisation to the safety of people and its surroundings.